Fax a PDF from the Mac OS X Command Line

How to Fax a PDF file from the Mac OS X Command Line, including a Cover Sheet

First, you must determine the name of your modem. To do this, at the command prompt type the following and press enter:

$ lpstat -p -d

Results:

printer EPSON_Artisan is idle. enabled since Wed Mar 18 15:12:05 2015
printer USRobotics_Modem is idle. enabled since Fri Feb 20 12:33:49 2015

Choose your modem. Mine was "USRobotics_Modem".


Now, to fax a PDF file to phone number 212-555-1234, type the following all on one line (formatted here for easier reading). I've also included additional fields to auto-generate a cover sheet.

$ sudo lp 
    -d USRobotics_Modem                                 // modem name
    -o phone=2125551234                                 // fax number
    -o faxCoverSheet                                    // include fax cover sheet
    -o faxSubject="ATTN: John Doe. Please Read"         // cover sheet subject
    -o faxCoverSheetMessage="RE: Important File 123456" // message for cover sheet
    "Important File 123456.pdf"                         // path to the file to be faxed

Distilled from the hint and comments in the 2003 article here:

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20031128150928128